Aftermath
by oftimeandspace
Summary: Mitchell learns the truth about Lucy. Contains episode 2x06 spoilers.


Three messages on her mobile and seven hours later, the dust of vampire corpses coating the back of his throat, his tongue, his teeth and the dull rush of transfused blood mixing in his veins, Lucy's voice clicks on and shivers, stumbles out something that sounds like, "I'm sorry."

He clutches his mobile in his fingers, stares at the patterned curtains around the beds in the A&E that contain the listless bodies of the four vampires that made it out of the undertakers. He is so tired, so weary, the bone deep exhaustion of running, sprinting away from himself for eighty years catching up to him in this cracked vinyl chair in a hall he cleaned just this morning, and so he retreats into small talk, automatically saying, "It's not your fault."

Something jagged in her voice catches, the ghost of a sigh as soft as whispers crackling in response; "They're calling me in to deal with the trauma," she says, and hangs up before he can reply.

Behind one of the curtains rises a high wailing keening; Daisy crumpled into herself and moaning, even after the sedatives and IV drips; a wild sound that caresses Mitchell's ears, drifts and dips and tangles into a melody of longing backed by the shrill screech of four malfunctioning life support alarms.

-----

George rings to say he is back at the house with Annie right after the police finish questioning Mitchell and he escapes to the relative calm of the hospital cafeteria. A new girl (not Cara, not anymore, still sobbing noiselessly to herself in a forgotten cave below the harbor) smiles as she hands him his large coffee and he stumbles over to the table in the furthest corner, tucked out of sight of the group of weary visitors huddled over their late night snacks.

He counts the passing seconds and then minutes under his breath: _ fivesixsevenjesus;_ on what feels like infinity Lucy pulls the seat across from him out from under the table and sits down, her pale face drawn and still.

"Why didn't you answer earlier?"

She shrugs, eyes sliding down to look at the bandages wrapped around his newly stitched arm, and says, "I was in the chapel."

"Right."

The pulse of her heartbeat trembles, fast and staccato, pushing against the soft expanse of her neck; her mouth turns down, pulling in, as she reaches out to place her hands on the table, palms flat and fingers spread out, as if she is trying to find some support that is quickly slipping from her grasping fingers.

"I thought it would be easy," she starts, pauses, eyes catching on his, "because you were an aberration, a quirk of malfunctioning genes. Something that couldn't be human."

Something within his chest expands, screaming, ancient and horrible and jagged, shrieking that this cannot be happening, it can't be, not here in this ugly room washing them out with fluorescent lighting.

Lucy's lips quirk up slightly, briefly, darkly amused even now, in that way that had first drawn him to her in that bathroom. "But that's the funny thing about science and faith. One catches you in the grasp of logic and the other… How couldn't I believe, Mitchell? With such evidence in front of me?" Her voice cracks, and she falls silent, eyes shining with tears she hides in the cuffs of her jacket, fingers pressing into the fragile skin of her eyelids.

By the time she looks up he has disappeared, the only reminder of him the empty Styrofoam cup lying on its side on the table across from her.

-----

He strides home, feet propelled by sensory memory, while in his mind he imagines Lucy standing in the wreckage of the undertakers, looking down upon him while he tries to pull Daisy away from the crumpled suit that once contained Ivan, science and faith and genes and betrayal, the white hot angry living flush of it, the beautiful human feel of it shivering down, worming its way into the dark spaces between his ribs, old and familiar as Herrick had once been.

On Henry Street he looks up, eyes focusing on the pink house, a light shining out dimly from behind the mismatched curtains in the living room, a small space where Annie is pacing back and forth crying while George rubs his eyes with tired hands and tries to soothe her, make her believe it will turn out right again.

Tea, there will be tea, and the three of them huddled on the couch with Annie's knee bumping his and George's solid weight warm against his side, while he tells them of how foolish he was, how naïve, with his grand ideas about love and salvation and redemption.

Not now, he thinks, blinded by the old fury and rage, not tonight, with the blood of vampires on his palms, staining his clothes, screaming for something like absolution.

He turns, boots rapping against the sidewalk, and heads into the darkness of the maze of Bristol streets.

-----

There are monsters lurking in the hidden byways of a half asleep city, waiting to step forth and crush victims screaming in their jaws, and he will seek them out, turn them about to face the mirror and see only themselves staring back at them with their wrongs screaming, ignored in the white rush of his teeth in their throats.

John Mitchell hunts.


End file.
